


Pack Animals

by sweetlikesugar



Series: Pack Writing [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alcohol, Drug Use, Jiang centric, Jiang is the first dog, Mentions of Violence, Not Beta Read, Other, Skov and Jiang are childhood friends, Skov is a mess, dream pack origin story lmao, no swan yet sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 07:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10963017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetlikesugar/pseuds/sweetlikesugar
Summary: Jiang stayed and finished his cigarette, not caring in the slightest about the class he was missing.He got up and stretched, his shoulders popping loudly and he groaned content. He caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar boy, tall with whitish blonde hair and a smattering of freckles across his nose. They both froze, looking at eachother until the boy threw him a crooked smile and walked away.





	Pack Animals

**Author's Note:**

> how Jiang and Skov became part of the Henrietta's Most Vicious

Jiang didn't remember specifically when he met Skov. It seemed he knew the other boy since he was born. He was familiar and something Jiang was used to having when everything went to shit.

His scuffed flower patterned sneakers, hair damaged from dye and bleach and the way his self preservation instinct evaporated the more he was drinking. Jiang was used to Skov and it helped.

 

 

Aglionby was everything to be expected from the school full of rich kids. It took him whole 5 days to realise how false the pristine and respectable facade was. Aglionby was lines of coke done off unused classroom desks, clouds of weed smoke escaping through bathroom doors, rows and rows of expensive cars and the way no one seemed to be real. Jiang hated it the minute he stepped inside. He hated the way everyone faked frienships, how everyone tried to one up eachother in the amount of money their parents possesed and how they wanted to make him pick a clique.

“I hate all of them”, he hissed to Skov during one of breaks, both of them crouched behind the building, smoking.

“No shit”, Skov snorted, “this is the worst dick measuring contest I've ever seen”.

“And the uniforms”, Jiang wailed, “why sweater vests”.

Skov lost it, toppling onto his ass with an unattractive snort of laughter.

“You're not even wearing it”.

“I burned it in your sink yesterday”, he smirked.

“I don't even want to know if it's true”, Skov rolled his eyes and got up when the bell rang.

 

Jiang stayed and finished his cigarette, not caring in the slightest about the class he was missing.

He got up and stretched, his shoulders popping loudly and he groaned content. He caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar boy, tall with whitish blonde hair and a smattering of freckles across his nose. They both froze, looking at eachother until the boy threw him a crooked smile and walked away.

 

Jiang caught glimpses of the boy here and there, but didn't make a move to acknowledge him further than brief seconds of eye contact.

 

Skov was way too calm past couple of weeks, which should have made Jiang suspicious, but he was too focused on not making any friends to pay attention. So when he heard the sounds of a fight while leaving his math class, he just groaned and walked towards the source of shouting.

He saw a wide ring formed from teenage boys craving fight, and inside was indeed Skov and some guy Jiang didn't recognize. He pushed himself through to the front of the ring.

“What the fuck, Skov!”, he yelled, exasperated more than anything else.

He watched Skov deliver couple more punches to the guy's face, enough to knock him off balance and finished with a kick to his jaw. The boy on the ground whined in pain and Skov grinned at Jiang, teeth red from the blood pouring out of his nose and shadows of bruises forming on his face.

Jiang sighed and rolled his eyes amused. “Why did you beat that poor fucker up?”.

Skov shrugged, “he was being an asshole”.

“This school is full of assholes, you're one of them”, Jiang snorted.

“Well shit”, Skov murmured, getting petulant, “maybe I didn't like the way he was talking”.

 

 

They properly met Proko at one of the substance parties. Skov almost got hit with a Molotov cocktail, had Prokopenko not yelled and tugged him back by the hood.

 

“Holy shit!”, Skov shrieked, half terrified half excited.

“Watch where the fuck you're going man”, Prokopenko hissed, pushing him, but not before checking for any injuries.

“This shit is crazy”, Jiang grinned, eyes hooded and bloodshot from weed.

“Jiang you were our ride”, Skov whined, “I'm about to get shitfaced”.

“We'll figure something out”, Jiang waved him away, “go have fun”.

He almost forgot about Prokopenko standing right next to him.

“You can crash at K's place”, he said, “we got plenty room”.

“Sure”, Jiang shrugged, “it's definitely better than going back to the dorm”.

“You live in the dorm?”, Prokopenko implored, leading them to a vacant car.

“Technically, only Skov does. I'm just crashing there”.

“You both go to Aglionby, right? I swear I saw you somewhere”.

“Yeah. Boarding school so that our parents don't have to look at us”, Jiang scoffed offering Prokopenko a freshly lit blunt.

Prokopenko shook his head, taking out a pack of cigarettes instead.

“I feel”, he murmured, “you ever need anything, find me at school and let me know”.

Jiang snapped his head up, hearing Skov yelling in the distance and then slouched back. “You can get me a place to stay?”, he smirked amused.

“You can stay with me and K”, Prokopenko offered, looking softly at him, “we have fuckton of empty rooms”.

Jiang blinked, slowed down by drugs in his system, but then nodded and smiled lazily. “Sure”.

 

When he woke up, first thing he noticed was the bed. He slept on the couch in Skov's dorm so the bed came as a surprise. Second thing was that the room wasn't, in fact, Skov's dorm at all. He vaguely recalled agreeing on crashing at Prokopenko's and K's house. Groaning as he checked his phone he prayed that Skov didn't get himself arrested. Stumbling out of the bed and wincing at his wrinkled clothes he tripped over his feet until he managed to get to what he presumed was a living room and dropped down on one of the plush sofas.

“You got up?”, Prokopenko called from the kitchen.

“Yeah”, he shouted back.

“You want coffee? Cereal? A shot?”, Prokopenko offered.

“Coffee?”, Jiang asked, not even batting an eyelash.

“Sure. K didn't come back yet, he probably passed out somewhere in his own puke”.

Jiang wasn't sure if Prokopenko was joking or not.

Prokopenko came back with two mugs, in yesterday's clothes, looking pale and tired.

Jiang took the mug gratefuly and downed half of it in one go.

“I really hope Skov didn't get arrested”, Jiang murmured, “he would've blown up my phone though”.

“You've known eachother for a long time?”, Prokopenko tilted his head, curious.

“I don't even know. He's just one of those people you seem to know your whole life”. Jiang didn't say that Prokopenko felt like that too.

“Cute”, Prokopenko snorted into his mug. “Your phone is ringing”.

Jiang groaned seeing an unknown number. “Hello?”.

“Jiang? My best friend for life? My beautiful bond brother?”, he heard Skov rasping.

“Did you get arrested?”, Jiang spat out impatiently, glaring at giggling Prokopenko.

“No. K's got me”.

Jiang raised his eyebrows. “Good because I'm at his and Proko's place”.

Skov made a surprised noise, “cool cool. We'll be there in like 15 minutes”.

“Cool”, Jiang echoed and ended the call.

“And?”, Prokopenko giggled.

“Kavinsky found him, somehow”, Jiang stuttered out. “They're coming back here”.

“Oh”, Prokopenko seemed surprised, “okay”.

Jiang made an unindentified noise raising his arms, “how does he get himself in shit like this”.

 

Three minutes later Kavinsky and Prokopenko stumbled inside, half dragging eachother and as soon as they entered, Kavinsky threw Skov to the ground while he fell onto the nearby sofa.

“Fuck”, Skov groaned face down on the floor.

“What did you even do”, Jiang sighed.

“I ejected my soul onto another astral plane and fought God with a slurpie straw at 7-Eleven parking lot”, Skov mumbled.

“I'm not even going to doubt you”, Jiang said into his coffee mug listening to Prokopenko's choked snorts.

Jiang glanced at Kavinsky, to see pair of black eyes already drilling into him. It was awfully similar to the way his father looked at him, judging yet emotionless. He quirked his eyebrow and stared back just as hard. Kavinsky grinned and nodded to himself, relaxing into the couch.

 “I thought about Jiang staying with us”, Prokopenko started, glancing at Kavinsky.

“I told you we can't get a dog, Proko”, Kavinsky goaded.

“Well shit, man”, Jiang droned, “I'm clean and I had almost all my shots”, he played along.

“See?”, Prokopenko grinned.

“But shit, Proko”, Kavinsky rasped, “what if it's agressive”.

Jiang bared his teeth in a grin, “then you have to deal with it”.

Prokopenko grinned in sly satisfaction, “I think it's perfect”.

Kavinsky shrugged, “it's your dog, you take care of it”.

Prokopenko stood up, taking Jiang's empty mug and raked his hand through Jiang's messy hair.

“I can manage”.

 

Living with Kavinsky and Prokopenko is a smooth transition and is honestly more comfortable than living with Skov. It's less hectic and he's not seeing Skov drink vodka from a bowl at three a.m. Kavinsky is usually nowhere to be seen and Prokopenko is easy to get along with.

 

 

 

He spent half of the party hotboxing in his car, so when he stumbles out in a cloud of heavy smoke, his clothes and hair soaked in smell of marijuana, the lights and the bass are making him dizzy. Nonetheless he climbs onto the car's roof and watches people drink and dance. He doesn't notice anything around him until he feels a girl tugging on his ankle, grinning.

“Dance with me and my friends?”, she asks, swaying lightly.

He shrugs and nods and soon finds himself in the middle of a small group of girls and boys alike.

He grins at them and closes his eyes, moving with the rhythm.

 

He leans his head on the shoulder of a boy behind him, grinning when he feels a hand sneaking up around his hips. He doesn't, however, expect it to be Kavinsky.

Kavinsky tugs him out of the crowd and presses him against his car. Despite being taller, Jiang feels as if Kavinsky is towering over him, eyes piercing through him coupled with hollowed cheeks and complexion ashen from drugs and lack of sleep. Kavinsky looks bloodthirsty and Jiang is not sure of anything anymore.

“So, how's the dog doing?”, Kavinsky grins, still crowding him against the car, lips brushing against his neck. It's unsettling.

“How do you think? I didn't piss on the carpet yet”, Jiang comments, bowing his neck to reach Kavinsky's ear.

Kavinsky laughs, wild and loud and Jiang sees how his pupils almost completely swallow his irises.

“Let's go for a ride”, he smirks.

 

All Jiang remembers from the ride is a purple pill pressed against his teeth and Kavinsky's taste on his tongue.

 

He's so out of it that he notices his gauze wrapped finger only two days after the party when Skov points it out to him. He unwraps it to find a tattoo stretching along the side of his middle finger and he snorts, because he should've known.

 

Skov wakes up on Kavinsky's couch a week later, a slab of gauze covering his hip right under the bone.

 

The blatant brand Kavinsky slapped on both of them should be, honestly, creepy, but they don't find it in themselves to care. One night, when Jiang spends the night at Skov's dorm, like “ye olden times” according to Skov, he keeps staring at the tattoo, deep in thought.

“Everytime you do this I want to flip you off right back, but then I remember you got ink there”, Skov complains, walking in with plastic bags full of snacks and alcohol.

Jiang smirks, “it's safe to assume I'm flipping you off anyway”.

In retaliation Skov drops down on the couch digging his elbow dangerously close to Jiang's crotch.

They end up falling asleep at five a.m, Skov's tilted hand spilling soda all over Jiang's shirt.

 

“Hey Jiang!”, he doesn't turn around, because he knows it's not Skov or Proko and he doesn't really care for anyone else.

“Come on man, wait up”, they catch up with him and he recognizes them from his math class and groans internally.

“What”, he sighs slowing down his pace.

“We saw you hang around Kavisnky now”, one of them states and Jiang squints, trying to remember his name. They take it as a sign of hostility and pale just a bit.

“Yeah, what about it”, he asks giving up on finding the name.

“Well we need a favour”, other one states, tall, blonde and broad and Jiang snorts, because he should've known.

“You need somethin' from K?”, he asks.

“Yeah”, they nod along.

“Then ask K, I'm not a parcel pigeon, grow some goddamn balls”, he chuckles.

The tallest one, towering even over Jiang, seems to be displeased with the answer.

“What the fuck man, what's it to you?”, he spits out.

Jiang shrugs, but subtly tightens the grip on the switchblade in his pocket. “If you need something from K, get it from K, I'm not gonna be your middleman. Just because you're a fucking bitchbaby don't mean I'm gonna do you favours”.

By now, some people have noticed the tension between them and they stop, watching curiously. Jiang doesn't really go out of his way to make friends with anyone who's not Skov or Proko and K, but he remains in civil relationships with most of people in his classes. Now he is outnumbered and even if he has a knife and is skilled in using it, he doesn't want to seriously hurt some stupid kid for not having balls.

Before any of them can swing though, Kavinsky saunters over and Jiang's grip around the blade relaxes along with the line of his shoulders. Kavinsky raises an unimpressed eyebrow at the group and turns to Jiang.

“Proko is worried about his dog catching fleas”, he murmurs, tracing Jiang's cupid's bow with his eyes, “go before he loses his shit”.

Jiang nods and leaves, trying to quell the heaving of his chest. He hates confrontations with burning passion, not because he's worried about himself, but because no matter how minor, they always leave him shaking. He pointedly ignores the way Prokopenko's eyes soften and the way the other boy keeps staring at Jiang's shaking hands in his pockets. Prokopenko just hands him a cigarette and starts whining about his classes more for Jiang's sake than his own.

 

It hits him next evening, when he's sitting with Skov at Kavinsky's place, yelling and miserably losing at Mario Kart with Prokopenko laughing at them from the couch behind them, how everything just fell into place.

 


End file.
